Chapter 324 — Sixty Lumps

CHAPTER 324

Sixty Lumps

The ferry's repair forge stood behind the counting house, and the anvil was covered in dust.

“Fourteen months of repairs,” Sima Lan said, wiping dust from the anvil. “They haven’t even been using the forge. Pu Gen let the gang take everything.”

“I'll start a fire,” Shi Feng said.

“You'll start sixty,” Lin Langtian said from the doorway. He dropped a sack on the floor. It clanked. “Sixty iron blanks, bought from the steward's hardware shed at two coppers each. Hand-sized. Ordinary iron. And one more thing.”

He tossed a small bronze stamp onto the anvil. It carried the two characters ARTIFICER HALL, cut backward.

“Put that on each one,” Lin Langtian said. “Then do whatever you do. I need them by morning.”

“You’ve seen my work,” Shi Feng reminded him. “I haven’t learned to refine these properly.”

“Then make sixty imperfect ones,” Lin Langtian said cheerfully. “Leave the selling to me. Zhu Liu, bring tea.”

Shi Feng lit the forge. The Thousand Forge Flame Art he’d learned at the pill stall was still at Entry. He fed qi into the coals, and the fire turned from orange to white. He heated the first blank until it glowed, laid it on the anvil, hit it with the stamp and folded the edge over, the way the old journals said.

The blank went dull. A grey streak crawled across it. It slumped into a lump the shape of a sleepy turtle.

“Failure,” Sima Lan said, and chalked a stroke on the forge wall.

“It's a plaque,” Shi Feng said.

“I can see the stamp,” Sima Lan said. “I can also see where you tried to fold it. That still counts as a failed attempt.”

The second blank cracked. The third came out uneven, with a swollen bubble. The fourth was almost round, but split along the grain while Shi Feng examined it.

Zhu Liu counted them as they cooled, writing each one into the receipt book. “Fourteen. Fifteen. Senior Brother Shi, number nine has slag on it.”

“They all have slag on them,” Shi Feng said, without stopping the hammer.

“Number nine has more,” Zhu Liu insisted. “Should I set it aside?”

In the middle of the night Old Soot crawled out of its basket, drawn by the heat. It watched from the forge until Shi Feng set a finished blank on the rack. Its tongue snatched the iron, and it burped grey smoke.

“That was number thirty-one,” Zhu Liu said.

“Write it down,” Sima Lan said, without looking up. “That one goes on its account.”

“It doesn’t have an account,” Zhu Liu protested.

“It does now,” Sima Lan replied, pointing to the new entry.

By dawn, sixty lumps lay in rows on the forge floor. They were grey, brown and rust-streaked. Some had holes. One looked like a face. Sima Lan stood over them with the chalk in her hand and a very straight back.

“Nine hundred and ninety-one,” Sima Lan said. “That's the wall's total, with these.”

“Is that good?” Shi Feng asked.

“It’s nine short of a round number,” Sima Lan said. She studied the crowded chalk marks with unwilling respect; he’d worked through the whole night again.

Lin Langtian came in with a bun in each hand and stopped. He examined the nearest plaque and beamed.

“Perfect,” Lin Langtian breathed.

“They're ugly,” Shi Feng said.

“They're unique,” Lin Langtian said. “Zhu Liu, how many?”

“Sixty, Senior Brother Lin. Less the one Old Soot ate,” Zhu Liu replied. “I’ve written ‘fifty-nine, one eaten.’”

“Fifty-nine and a legend,” Lin Langtian said. “A single spark can start a prairie fire. Bring them out.”

At the dock, the merchants had been queuing since dawn. Lin Langtian climbed onto his salt barrel and held up the ugliest plaque, a knotted lump streaked with black.

“Look at this!” Lin Langtian shouted. “Slag-forged! Do you see how it twists? A smooth plaque cracks under the first blow. A slag plaque has already survived the fire, and has nothing left to be afraid of!”

A silk dealer called out to ask whether it was unbreakable.

“Unbreakable!” Lin Langtian said. “Made by the very hand that drew a Nascent Soul's tribulation!”

Shi Feng, standing beside the barrel with his arms folded, opened his mouth. Sima Lan stepped on his foot.

“I didn't draw—” Shi Feng said quietly.

“It's the sect's story,” Sima Lan said, just as quietly. “Don't spoil it for free.”

The merchants didn't hesitate. They surged forward waving purses, and Zhu Liu's table vanished under a wall of hands. A salt dealer paid fifty for a plaque shaped like a duck. A tea merchant paid sixty-five for a lump with a hole in the middle, because he said the hole let the luck out and in. Sima Lan stood behind the table with her ledger and raised the price after every fifth sale, without once changing her face.

“That one's seventy,” Sima Lan said to a man reaching for a plaque.

The buyer protested that it had cost fifty a moment ago.

“The price rises after every fifth sale,” Sima Lan told him. “Buy it now or let the next man through.”

By noon they were all gone. Zhu Liu counted the money three times. Two thousand eight hundred and forty stones. Lin Langtian poured himself a cup of tea beaming at the full money box.

“Now,” Lin Langtian said. “Steward Pu. Which barge is crossing first?”

“The Third Cousin,” Pu Gen said, pointing. “Fourteen carts. Every one has a plaque.”

They watched the barge push off from the south dock. Fourteen carts rode low on the deck, each with an ugly grey lump hanging from its front rail. The boatmen sang as they poled out. The merchants cheered from the shore.

Shi Feng watched the river.

At midstream, three low reed boats slid out from the grass in a low line. They didn't stop. They didn't slow.

They closed on the barge.